Kiss & Hell by Dakota Cassidy Page A

found out what those beginners’ demon classes were. When I refused to participate in learning how to create mayhem, or study ‘Possession—Your Guide to Rebirth,’ I was sent to the file room, and for someone like me, all that paperwork really is Hell—a punishment I can’t quite describe, and my level boss knew it. I was eventually labeled difficult, but not untrainable. So I lay low, learned a thing or two. Learned newbie demons are granted day-, week-, even month-long passes all the time. But, some of the things I’ve learned—seen—I’d like to forget. So there it is.”
    Her lips pursed. “Still doesn’t explain why Lucifer sent you to do this particular deed. You’re a noob. Unless he thought you had some innate ability. Like driving mediums crazy with a demon’s constant yapping.”
    His sigh expelled from his chest, making it expand and push at the throw she’d given him. “You’re right, I am a noob, painfully so. But Lucifer doesn’t do much more than leave the assignments up to his level bosses—most times. Though your file had his handwriting all over it. But here’s the clincher on this whole mess. I wasn’t really assigned to you.”
    Now that made her pause. “So who was?”
    Clyde’s eyes held guilt in the way they flitted from her face and focused on something behind her. “Some guy named Clyve Atwell. It was easy enough to change the letters in the name on the file from a v to a d . Like I said, I wasn’t totally above using these demonic powers, mediocre as they might be, to get me the frig out of there. I can’t think of much that would be worse than the punishment I was due for my refusal to attend classes. I’m also not proud of what I did—but this Clyve was a total waste of skin in life. He deserved what he got when I pulled that off.”
    “Well, now I’m really dying here, Clyde . What kind of assignment did poor Clyve get that you were supposed to get?”
    His next sigh represented a man truly torn—or really good at faking it. “Keep in mind, my original assignment was meant to debase me, humiliate me for not joining the freak show down there,” he hedged.
    “And?”
    “He’s Paris Hilton’s newest Chihuahua . . . well, he’s possessing it, anyway—for a year. I have a feeling he’ll be wearing diamond-encrusted collars and having his renal glands milked on a regular basis until the punishment is up.”
    Laughter bubbled in her throat and spilled out in a burst of snorting giggles. “I can see how that’d be a sentence worse than death. But this also begs the question: did this Clyve with a v deserve what he got? The word according to you, of course.”
    Disgust was written all over his sleekly chiseled face. “He was a pig, one of the worst humans to roam planet Earth,” he spat with a flex of his big fist. “A bastard. A vile bastard. Clyve with a v deserved to rot in the pit for eternity. He had a laundry list of criminal activity. A rap sheet so long I’d still be reading it if I wasn’t worried I’d get caught. But the worst of it is, he was responsible for a hit-and-run that killed a kid. A seven-year-old kid.”
    Clyde shook his dark head, clearly because of the senselessness of something so tragic. “Never even looked back, the drunk ass. He knew he did it, too, and to this day, no one knows who killed Katie Martin. Except Clyve. He knew he’d snuffed a kid. He made a comment about it that I can’t repeat without the threat of losing my lunch.” Clyde’s last words were riddled with such repulsion even she paused.
    A somber moment lingered between them. Delaney reached for her grandmother’s chair behind her, sitting down and gripping the arm that wasn’t charred beyond recognition. If Clyde wasn’t telling the truth, he was damned good at spinning some smack, because a tale like that was . . . vile, unimaginable. “Jesus Christ Superstar,” she muttered. A sharp pain clutched at her heart for little Katie Martin and a family that